The invention relates to a hanger transport system for transporting a plurality of hangers on which a plurality of garments may be hung and to a system for automatically feeding hangers into the hanger transport system.
Hanger transport systems may be used in connection with garment manufacturing and retailing operations in which garments are automatically conveyed to and from various locations. One hanger transport system that was used before the present invention by the assignee of the invention had a hook transport system with a plurality of hooks spaced at equal intervals along a hook conveyor in the form of a cable which carried the hooks along a conveyance direction. To pick up hangers having garments disposed thereon, the hooks passed by a hanger pickup station, at which point each incoming hook would pick up one of the hangers. A hanger supply member in the form of a downwardly sloped rod was associated with the hanger pickup station.
In the above system, hangers were manually transferred by an operator from the hanger supply member to the hanger pickup station. In particular, immediately after each incoming hook picked up a hanger from the hanger pickup station, the operator would manually move a hanger from the hanger supply member to the hanger pickup station, so that the next incoming hook would pick up that hanger. The manual transfer of hangers from the hanger supply member to the hanger pickup station is undesirable for various reasons, including the fact that the operator may not be able to transfer hangers fast enough to keep up with the rate of conveyance of the hooks by the hook transport system and since such manual transfer of hangers is tedious work.